


Distraction

by theLiterator



Series: Zevran/Alistair 'verse [5]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Torture, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-14
Updated: 2010-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-08 18:48:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zevran gets caught by those Tevinter slavers from the Alienage during the Landsmeet section of the game. It's okay... he has a plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Distraction

They were in cages, pressed together like stinking, terrified animals, and Zevran could feel no pity for them, only disgust. It is their fault, he thinks, their fault that he is here. If someone had fought sooner, had told one of the more sympathetic humans about their plight...

Unceremoniously, the Tevinter soldier shoved him into one of the cages, slamming the door shut with a fatalistic clang before dousing the lamps and leaving the room.

It was silent and dark, and Zevran was reminded of that old warehouse he'd lived in until he'd been deemed trained enough to be an apprentice to one of the masters.

After a few more minutes with the soldier not returning, one of his fellow prisoners whispered "Who's there?"

"Zevran," he responded quietly. Whispers carry farther than a soft-voiced comment, after all.

"Zevran? Do I know—oh! Are you Rory's oldest lad?"

Zevran scoffed. "Hardly. I have no idea who Rory is. I am not from here."

"Ah. Then you wouldn't happen to know if... my niece. Shianni." Zevran rolled his eyes, though it was pointless with no light.

"The brash young lady with more coglione to her credit than the lot of you combined?" he inquired cruelly, conversationally.

"Yes," the man sighed heavily. "That does sound like her."

"Then she is fine. She leads rioting in the streets and begs passing Grey Wardens for aid in her quest to determine what has happened to you."

The door opened again, revealing a man in robes instead of armor. He carried Zevran's things in one hand, a ring of keys in the other. Zevran has enough prudence to hunker down, to try to look miserable like the other elves.

Enough humans cannot tell them apart that he had a vain hope that it might work.

It might have, but the mage was expecting it. He opened the cage with the girls, hauled one of the youngest out by her hair, and flung her to the floor. Zevran winced.

"Now, we can do this very simply, my friend, and you can reveal yourself to me without any pretense of chicanery, or, I can send this lovely young lady back to the barracks with the rest of my guard. Either way, I will speak with you."

The older elf who had asked for news of his niece choked a little behind him. "Gwyn!" and it just figured that everyone knew everyone in an Alienage. Make a prison into a community and the inmates will never leave.

Zevran looked the mage in the eye, waggled his fingers a little through the bars, 'come and get me.'

"There is no need to be crude, my good Ser. I happen to have an offer for you that your employer would pay dearly for."

"I'm sure of it," he said nastily. "Let's hear it then."

"Now, now, let us not be hasty. You will return the girl safely to her cage, and release me instead. We will talk this out as equals, I think."

"You haven't a leg to stand on, elf." The mage sneered, kicked the girl. She cried out.

"Then I will give you a small taste of the bounty to come. I know the location of not one, but _two_ Grey Wardens."

The mage froze. Zevran smirked. The other elves in his cage muttered angrily. One spat on him. Zevran ignored it.

"Where?"

"See, now this is where the bargaining comes into play. You will lock the girl safely in that cage, and let me free, and then we will discuss things like payment. And only then will I tell you where the Grey Wardens are."

The mage yelled for a guard, and Zevran watched with a smug feeling of self-satisfaction as the girl was shoved back into her cage.

Zevran was hauled back out of the enclosure and forced to his knees in front of the mage.

"Name your price," he snarled.

Zevran smiled. "My price?" he shook his head. "You misunderstand."

"I'll give you twenty sovereigns, and the girl," the mage said.

"No, no, good Ser. There is not enough gold in all of Thedas."

The mage stared at him. "Pardon?"

"You ask me to betray my friends. My _lover_. I would gladly die to keep you from them."

Zevran expected the blow. He smiled through the pain. "Oh, lovely. Torture. But I must warn you, I am a hard man to break."

The mage snapped his fingers and the soldiers quickly relieved Zevran of the rest of his clothing. He wistfully eyed the bundle of his belongings on the table across the room, the knives he knew were just out of reach, but turned his gaze back on the mage.

"All I want to know, elf, is the location of the Wardens. I'll leave the rest of their sycophants and camp-followers alone. Your lover will be safe."

His voice was smooth, enhanced by some spell. Zevran _wanted_ to obey. He shook his head.

"Come now, there is no need for any unpleasantness."

"Again you misunderstand. They must not teach mages very well where you come from. The mages I know are all irresistible and sharp as a Qunari blade. You, my friend, are neither."

The mage backhanded him again, and Zevran only just kept his balance. He spat blood, smiling triumphantly when it landed on the mage's robes. The mage turned, collected a long flexible strap from the table behind him.

Zevran raised an eyebrow.

The mage stroked the strap, smiling. "Tell me then; what do I misunderstand this time."

"You make the assumption that no Grey Warden would carry on with a lowly elf. I am here to tell you that not only is that true, but also, one of them _is_ an elf."

Several sharp gasps sounded behind him, but Zevran could spare no attention to them. Now—now came the hard part.

"I choose not to draw blood. Even if I do not wring a name from your lips, I can still gain a price for your flesh."

Zevran nodded. "A wise decision. Very shrewd. But you know what else draws no blood? The rack. Now there is a fine—" he cut himself off with a sharp exhale of pain. The strap may not be the worst thing he had been hit with in his storied life, but he had grown accustomed to soft life, gentle touches and a clap on the shoulder from his comrades and leaders.

It has been too long, he thinks. And he prays to the Maker, the one Leliana and Alistair trust in-- not the boyhood conception of forgiveness and cruelty that he had always seen, that he can withstand long enough.

It was tediously repetitive, several blows, never in the same place on his body, a string of questions he answered with increasingly strained nonchalance. He could see the women crying quietly, remained blessedly ignorant of the reaction of the men. All he could do was hold still, kneeling naked on the cold floor, and endure.

"That is enough," the mage said finally. Zevran panted through the pain, head lolling forward. He could not seem to raise it. "Throw him back with the others. He knows nothing, and I have business to attend."

"Wait!" Zevran managed to say aloud. "Wait. I will tell you."

'Will you? Will you really, little elf. So it was your freedom, then, that I should have held over your head. I will keep that in mind."

"Yes. Do." Zevran ran his tongue over his teeth, tried not to think about the throbbing pain across his shoulders and chest, belly and thighs.

"Well?"

"The Wardens are in your compound. You see, you happen to have collected a family member that is dear to one. And she will have him back."

"Nonsense! Put him back in the cage and take that girl to the barracks. You men have earned a reward."

The soldier had just fitted the key to the lock of the cage when the door slammed open and an unfamiliar elven woman stumbled through. "My lord!" she shouted, in warning, he supposed.

She died quickly. The mage tried to bargain with Kallian, but the Warden was not stupid. She was sweet and deadly and fantastically beautiful as always. He leered at her when she slit the mage's throat.

It was all over very quickly. Alistair cut through the remaining soldiers while Kallian opened the locked cages. Zevran allowed himself to sag forward, to rest his weight on his hands.

Alistair was the first at his side. He was covered in the blood of the Tevinter soldiers and stank of sweat and hot metal. Zevran had never been quite so pleased to see anyone in his life. Alistair made a fuss of checking him over, testing the welts on his skin and snarling when a few oozed blood. Zevran smiled at him, happy and free and completely unlike the smiles he had given the mage.

Alistair smiled back tentatively, tucked a strand of hair behind Zevran's ear.

Kallian stalked over and cuffed Zevran lightly. "That was the stupidest plan I have ever seen in my _life!_" she shouted.

"I thought it worked quite well, my dear," he said. "The ring is all but destroyed, is it not?"

"Yes, _very_ well. 'I will go distract them while you infiltrate their compound. Ciao!'"

He snorted. "I do not say 'ciao' like some bourgeois Orlesian merchant with a desire to appear Antivan. You malign me."

She smacked him again. He ducked against Alistair. "Ow!" She scoffed and stalked over to the women who were milling hesitantly near the door.

"Clothes, I think," Alistair said as he assisted Zevran to his feet.

"But not armor yet," he requested. Alistair nodded.

He still felt wobbly and uncertain as the exited the warehouse, but Alistair stayed next to him, solid and supporting, and he got to listen to Kallian's father telling her there were many worse elves she could have attached herself too.

Alistair bristled next to him, but Zevran leaned close, inhaling deeply. "He knows one of the Wardens has claim on me... it is not his fault he is hopeful that it is his daughter, is it?"

"Make yourselves at home," Cyrion said, gesturing expansively at the tiny, cramped little home they had all piled into. Alistair immediately started stripping out of his plate, and Zevran could see a long, angry slice along his forearm.

"You're hurt," he said, feeling anger swarm up inside of him. "You shouldn't be..."

"What," he interrupted. "Am I not allowed to be the hero?"

"Only once a year," Zevran retorted. "Which puts you ahead a few dozen years."

"I promise," Alistair said, tugging Zevran close, "once this Blight is over, I will make up every one of those years."

"Don't be daft," Zevran scoffed, not making eye-contact. "You're meant to be a hero."

"Yes, just so long as I leave the planning to you, right?"

"Right," Zevran said, not quite pulling away.

Alistair let him go, as he always did when things got too close, too personal, and Zevran spared him a relieved glance over his shoulder before he joined Kallian and her father, a casual arm flung over her shoulders.

She shrugged him off right away, of course, and proceeded to shout at him for misleading her father in such a gross, obstinate way. He laughed it off, asked for supper.

Night fell, and the impromptu celebration ended with Kallian asleep in her childhood bed, and Alistair bundled in some blankets on the floor in the main room.

Zevran stretched, trying not to wince at the pain from the beating.

"I don't understand," Cyrion said outright, suddenly. They were on the lighter side of a bottle of wine, and Zevran knew he should go sleep, for tomorrow would be harder, more painful than today. Tomorrow always was, after all. Instead, he stepped into the conversational gambit.

"What don't you understand?"

"Why a human?" He glanced over towards Alistair's sleeping form, sprawled out and in the cramped room.

"Why not? He is not exactly unappealing."

"True, but... you hate them, don't you?"

"Humans? I hate no particular species or group. It is as much your fault as theirs, after all."

Cyrion shook his head. "You really believe that?"

"I was not raised an elf, I was raised a whore and an assassin. It tends to alter one's perception of the world around him, I think."

Cyrion wrinkled his nose in disapproval. "As cynical as you are, I find myself glad you did not choose my daughter."

Zevran shook his head. The man lived in a small world of absolutes. He had no idea who his daughter was anymore, and Zevran had to work at not feeling sorry for him.

Cyrion finished his glass of wine, stood. "I should get some rest. There is much to be done here, tomorrow."

"Yes, here, and elsewhere." After all, tomorrow Alistair would be named king of all Ferelden, or killed for his pretense to the throne.

He watched Cyrion slowly walk to his room, the ache in his heart strengthening, before he turned to Alistair, asleep on the floor, to seek his own rest and respite.

Tonight, he would sleep someplace warm and safe and accepting. It would be good while it lasted.  
***

As always, comments are love.


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